Welcome back - what has been happening in the world of BYOK since we last heard from you ? Have their been any line-up changes ?

Thanks! A lot of things have happend since last time. We have been very active doing gigs and shows all over Sweden. There have been a lot of great experiences and also some that was not so great but what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, hehe. At this moment we are focusing on new material that we aim to release in the end of this year. About the line-up changes; our drummer left the band so nowadays Robin Österberg is in charge of the drums. Thanks to him we can do even more advanced songs since he is a way better drummer than our previous one. This will definitely be noticeable in our new songs. Also we now have Joel Ek on the bass and our old bassist took the role of guitarist instead.

Thanks for sharing your recent live recording with us - where was the gig ? how did it go ?

It was at the legendary venue "Sticky Fingers" in Gothenburg. A lot of well-known metalbands have played there - In Flames even made a DVD when they played there. The gig went great. There's nothing more to say really. The audience was a bit shy - other than that it was a perfect gig.

The live recording captures a band who are very tight and accomplished - how often do you play gigs ? how big are these events ?

During the last year we have been aiming to play as much gigs as possible so we have spent a lot of time on stage. We don't rehearse as much as we would like but somehow we manage to be tight and do good performances anyways. The size of the events vary. Some gigs have been on festivals, on huge stages and some have been on smaller venues and pubs. Most of the gigs have been in pubs actually. And we always get free beer so I guess we will become alcoholics if we keep this up, hehe.

Downloaders will hopefully of also checked out your studio recording released through DTM 'My Life's a Curse ; how's yours ?' - What have you been doing since this was recorded ?

We have been busy recording and putting our full-length album "End" together. While waiting for the label to release it we have mainly focused on gigs and getting as many hours as possible on stage. That's pretty much it. We have also written a lot of new material that we currently are putting together into our upcoming release later this year. Other than that it have been like a "status quo" for the band. We haven't been able to do as much as we wanted because of the insane delay from our label.

You recently released your full-length debut album with a 'commercial' record company - 'Sleazy Rider' - what was the deal ? Did it work out well ? What did they do for you ? Please give us some details ?

It haven't been released yet. We are still waiting for it to be released. At this moment there's nothing we can do about it so therefor we focus mainly on new material. You could say that they have done nothing for us this far. Of course we are very disappointed because of the huge problems with 'Sleazy Rider' but we don't want to waste our energy on being angry or anything like that. We are focusing that energy into our new songs instead. "End" will be released one way or another. That's none of our concern at this moment, we have already thought and talked so much about the whole 'Sleazy Rider' situation so we feel we are through with it. The album will come when it comes.

You seem to have had your fingers burnt by the music industry - for such a young promising band, did this come as a shock to you ? what will you expect from any future deal offered to BYOK ?

We will expect nothing. We've learned that there aren't any shortcuts in the music industry. We have to put a lot of work and energy into the band if we wish to succeed with our future plans. There are no labels that will step in and make you famous over one night. We have a lot of hard work in front of us and we are all very excited about it. There's a new promising label that we have some contact with that we probably will sign a contract with in the near future. The people behind it are good friends of ours so we have nothing to worry about this time. We have also co-operated with them a lot this year, they've helped us by booking live-gigs etc.

What are the future plans for BYOK ? Will you be sharing any more recordings with us ? Do you have much new material in the works ?

The future plans consists of recording new material that hopefully will be released in the end of this year. After that we will focus on doing live gigs combined with working on our next full-length album. And yes, we will definitely share more recordings with DTM.

Any last words ?

A big thanks to Death To Music for all that they have done for BYOK!